Superintendent of Schools Carey Laviolette

Iberia Parish School System officials announced this week that the summer care program put on by the IPSS will be closed beginning this year. 

Superintendent of Schools Carey Laviolette said that while the decision was not an easy one to make, cancelling the supplemental program was necessary to attend to the Iberia Parish School Board’s budget. 

A letter issued throughout the school system announced the closure. Laviolette said the announcement came in February so that parents who used the program can make other arrangements. 

“After discussions with Superintendent Ms. Laviolette and the Board members, we have decided to NOT offer our summer student care program beginning with Summer of 2019,” the letter read. “So they may have time to make other arrangements, please give advance notice to as many parents as possible.”

The decision to cut the program came from the IPSS administration, and not by a vote from the Iberia Parish School Board. Laviolette said the program was a supplemental one and within her authority to make. 

“Cutting the program is not something we’d like to do,” Laviolette said Thursday. “But I feel we are giving parents sufficient time to make other arrangements.”

Laviolette said the summer care program for students was not a self-sustaining program, as well as a supplemental program. Many other school systems do not have a summer care program, and most do not, she added. 

Some of the costs involved with the program that led to its closing mostly involved indirect costs including providing benefits to staff, pending lawsuits and worker’s compensation. 

School maintenance for many Iberia Parish schools also occur during the summertime, and shifting students involved in the program was another factor involved in the closing. 

Laviolette added that the before and aftercare programs that are put on during the school year will still be in effect.